


Night is Slipping

by orphan_account



Category: NSYNC
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-10
Updated: 2010-03-10
Packaged: 2017-10-07 20:46:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/69086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lance returns from space camp and goes to Broadway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Night is Slipping

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Black Coffee](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Black+Coffee).



The first night Lance spends at Joey's place in New York, Joey tastes like Joey, the taste of welcome and home after a long, disappointing trip, like the mocha he must have had before they went home. Lance forgets things he wants to in the warmth of Joey's flesh, in the thread of need that he thinks he hears in Joey's voice sometimes as he sucks Joey into oblivion.

When he wakes up, Joey is pouring him a cup of hot black coffee, almost entirely naked except for a sock. Lance smiles, and the world feels huge as he takes his first sip.

* * *

 

Lance met Harmony last when Joey was introducing him to everyone. He was lost in a swirl of names but Harmony stuck out to him. She was one of the set designers. She was voluptuous and dark-haired, a classic Italian beauty, or as close to classic as she could get with a labret piercing. He accidentally knocked her drink over and everyone yelled at him to get out. He was confused at first, but Harmony rolled her eyes and said, "Don't mind these chuckleheads. They think I'll go through withdrawal without my hourly mocha."

"Will you?" Lance asked with a smile.

"Nah. There's this great coffee shop a block away from here. I can get my fix pretty quickly."

* * *

 

This time, Lance thinks. He slips into bed, warm and comforting and smelling of Joey who smells like sweat, Arm &amp; Hammer antiperspirant and clothes that haven't been washed for three days.

Joey's arm immediately goes around his chest, his heavy leg on Lance's waist and nuzzles Lance's neck.

"Missed you," Joey mumbles, his breath smelling of chai tea. Lance tenses immediately, but Joey knows too much. He raises his arm to let his fingers drift on the side of Lance's face and gets closer. He licks the whorls of Lance's ear and Lance can't help it. Joey's a weakness he's always had. He turns his head to kiss Joey, Joey's tongue slick and deliberate and feels so good Lance squirms. He runs his fingers through Joey's hair, hearing the crunch of hair gel giving way.

"Breathing's overrated," Lance says, and Joey smiles slowly and gently, somewhere between slippery dream and bright reality. He kisses Joey, kisses that mouth, those eyelids, the tip of Joey's nose before starting a deep kiss that doesn't stop until Joey doesn't taste like anything anymore.

"Tired," Joey mumbles through panted breath. Lance stops and goes on his side of the bed. Sleep comes easily but dreamlessly.

* * *

 

The girl was beautiful and young. She had long hair that was parted in the middle and perfectly developed calf muscles. She wore a furry scarf and held the Rent soundtrack for Joey to sign. It was cold that night, and the scent of the cinnamon in her chai tea was an appealing scent as she held her Starbucks cup in one hand and extended the CD with a silver pen in the other. She looked disdainfully at Lance; he imagined her sneering 'pop star' in her head. She turned to Joey and lit up, her sharp white teeth a striking contrast against her blood red mouth and asked Joey to sign it Callie.

"You should really consider being a full time stage actor," Callie said.

* * *

 

Lance often waits after shows at a recently renovated coffee shop decorated with warm earth tones and wood. His favourite corner is composed of booths covered in suede-like fabric. The table is sleek glass with an Art Deco pattern composed of amber and golden squares, and a lamp is against the wall, covered in what looked like cheesecloth. The chairs are positioned perfectly because it claims a corner of the shop and has a vaguely private feel. Lance loves it most of all because it's ugly, the design an ill-conceived mixture of Starbucks and a diner.

When he came to New York when being an astronaut didn't work out, Joey took him here after a show, mainly because the shop had an absurd painting of a dog in space. Lance laughed at the picture, hated the uncomfortable chairs and loved the coffee.

He usually waits for Joey here after a show but he learned quickly that Joey was with a different crowd. He never feels unwelcome, but it's a different crowd of people. After Russia, where he was alone with people who spoke a different language and kept their distance, Lance found that he liked not being touched by people he didn't really know, and he appreciates it far more now after being away from it for so long.

He often wonders what will happen when he gets into the swing of business again. He thinks about a lot of things, taking a sip of his strong black coffee occasionally. The sleek silver of the Palm Pilot that Joey gave him glimmers as the soft amber glow of the coffee shop's lights touch it.

Joey doesn't come until after midnight most of the time. When he's feeling particularly cynical, he tries to guess what Joey's excuse will be.

On this particular night, Joey bears the sweetness of hot chocolate as he speaks, his breath warm near Lance's ear. "Guess who?" Joey says, and Lance almost laughs out loud.

* * *

 

Lance saw him outside before Joey came in the coffee shop. Joey's hand lingered in the air like a doll for a moment before punching whoever he was with on the arm. He was handsome, from what Lance could determine, and different from the men Joey usually picked. He was tall, slender and very pale. Cocooned in black and gray, he smirked at Joey before putting on sunglasses. Before he sat in the cab, he lifted the back of his long coat so he wouldn't sit on it and mock saluted Joey as the cab drove away.

Joey threw away two paper cups in the trash before coming in. There was still some in one cup. There was a darkly golden arc of liquid that appeared before the cups hit the bin.

* * *

 

The coffee shop has several clocks set on different time zones. In New York, it's 12:50 am and almost 6:00 am in London, while it's only 9:45 in LA. Lance idly wonders what's going on in Russia as Joey sits down beside Lance in the booth. It always tickles Lance that Joey never sits across whenever they were in a booth, that he always tells Lance to move to the side.

"How was the show tonight?" Lance asks.

"Not too good. The crowd was tough tonight."

"People are so fucking easy to please now," Lance says dryly.

Joey chortles before waving the waitress over. She's clearly unimpressed and continues to talk on the phone.

"They're all becoming German," Joey says. Lance snickers. There is almost nothing worse than a room of dour, unimpressed German girls. Their first week had been brutal. They had gotten the hang of it soon enough, but the first week of performances still stands out as one of the worst in Lance's mind.

"Have you talked to the others yet?" Joey asks.

Lance takes a deliberate sip of his coffee. He hears Joey sigh and continues to sip. It's hard to tell the other guys right now about this particular feeling of solitary failure on such a humiliating scale.

* * *

 

He dreamt before of stars and suns and blue open skies, of swimming in sunspots and peeling planets like oranges. His dreams were secrets he never shared because he wanted the experience of space so badly that even the best words were never enough. It was the one thing he thought he could claim for himself, something the other guys would never touch. It was the first thing he knew he wanted as long as he had known the possibility to reach it existed. It was in a list of things he couldn't get, no matter how hard he tried.

* * *

 

It's 1:00 AM and Joey finishes eating his chicken pesto sandwich. Lance looks at his Palm Pilot and thinks of making anything other than a love story.

"Have you ever wanted something badly enough that you couldn't even think of sharing it with anyone?" Lance asks as he deletes a name.

Joey looks up at him through long lashes. Lance's heart skips a beat. "What d'you think NSYNC is, dude?" Joey asks in return.

"It was never your dream Joe. Not the way it was Chris' or Justin's, or the way it felt natural to JC. It was never really mine either."

Joey taps his fingers on the table. "Yeah, I guess, but it was still a dream. I always wanted to be-" Joey pauses to spread his arms out, inadvertently hitting Lance softly in the cheek, "sorry, sorry. Big."

Lance stares down. He can almost see his coffee getting cold. "Do you have everything you wanted then?"

"What kinda stupid question is that?" Joey grabs his hand underneath the table and holds it tight. He waves at a waitress again, saying "Can we have some more please?" Lance's cup is refilled but it is Joey who takes a sip first out of Lance's white porcelain cup.

Lance feels every nerve on his hand. He tugs at Joey, who looks at him lazily, indulgently. He leans in for coffee-flavoured kiss but remembers where they are and settles for a hug.

* * *

 

One day, Lance thought as he looked at Joey eating his sandwich with gusto, one day, maybe this won't matter as much. And his life changed.

THE END


End file.
